Intel presents Ultrabook strategy

Intel’s Sean Malone, a chap that works as Intel Corporation Executive vice president and a serious candidate for the next CEO, is back on his job after a stroke he suffered back in March 2010.

Maloney introduced the Ultrabook ultrathin notebook concept, saying that it will fly with the introduction of Ivy Bridge in first half of 2012, but it will start off with some Sandy Bridge parts. Ultrabook should capture some 40 percent of thin and light market segment by the end of 212 and he even mentioned that $999 and below is the price. Intel calls this no compromise computing market, and we have to agree that going tablets today, means a lot of tradeoffs to have a keyboardless notebook.

For us this sounds like the return of somewhat underappreciated CULV products. Intel dropped them last year and it appears that consumers weren’t too keen to embrace somewhat slower notebooks with superior battery life. Even with Sandy Bridge, second generation core it can introduce some of the Ultrabooks. Intel said to expect thin, light and beautiful design and a notebook that is less than 20mm (0.8 inch) thick, but no form factor was given at present time.

You should be able to buy some of them by winter holiday and Asus UX21 is the first one announced. With the introduction of Ivy Bridge 22nm in first half of 2012, there will be more of these Apple Mac book Air lookalikes. Intel also mentioned the Cedar Trail netbook platform, its first Atom in 32nm that we mentioned more than a year ago. Cedar Trail enables fanless designs and it is Intel Rapid Start capable. In addition, it will bring wireless display to netbooks and it promises 10 hours of battery life and a week on standby. Netbooks will run Windows, Google Chome and MeeGo, no Android for these ones.

Maloney also slowed 10 tablets running three different operating systems, Windows, Android and Meego and they were all based on Atom z670. Intel claims 35 design wins for z670 since April and think that they can compete with ARM in this segment.